Assembling an M1 Garand Rifle From Parts
Ammunition

.30-06 Springfield Ammunition

The M1 Garand rifle fires the
Cartridge, Ball, Caliber .30 M2,
known to civilians as the
.30-06 Springfield cartridge.
It's based on the .30-caliber cartridge
standardized in 1906 at
the Springfield Armory.
The 1906 Springfield design represented a number of major
trends developments in cartridge and weapon design in that era.
A version of it was the U.S. military's main rifle cartridge
until the M14 rifle and its 7.62x51mm NATO round
was introduced in 1957.

Smokeless powder had replaced black powder in the 1880s.
It provided about three times the energy of an equal mass
of black powder.
That led to higher muzzle velocity, giving a flatter
trajectory, greater accuracy, and greater range along
with greater kinetic energy.

Surprisingly, it wasn't until 1898 that the French came up
with another new development, one that seems obvious in
hindsight.
Pointed bullets provided better aerodynamics and ballistics.

Those developments required corresponding improvements in
metallurgy.
The greater power of smokeless powder required
strong receivers and barrels.
It also required that the bullet's jacket and its binding
to the lead core could withstand the rapid acceleration
through the rifled barrel.
And finally, semi-automatic operation required that the
brass ammunition cases first withstand increased
chamber pressure and then by yanked from the chamber
by the ejector and knocked to the side by the extractor.

The U.S. military went through a series of rifle ammunition
designs in the few years around 1900 —
U.S. .30-03, 6mm Lee Navy, and .30-40 Krag.
The 1906 Springfield design then worked well for 50 years
of military service.

They sell
M2 Ball .30-06,
the standard military issue ammunition for the M1 Garand.

There's a good chance that it will be Greek,
as this case is.

It's not terribly obvious, but see the lot marking
LOT-***-HXP-**, where HXP is the
headstamp code for the
Greek Powder and Cartridge Company of Athens.

Be very careful
to avoid dangerous reloads!
The CMP forum and other mailing lists
have archived many horror stories that started with someone
using dubious reloaded ammunition, even reloads purchased
from a store.
For example,
here
and
here.

The ODCMP sales offer real M2 Ball .30-06 made to
military specifications.
Is it absolutely guaranteed to be perfect?
No.
But at least it's not some unknown reloads being offered
very cheaply at a gun shop.
Also remember that the M1 Garand sights are calibrated for
the ballistics of the standard M2 Ball round.

You can get it by the case, as seen above.
A case of 480 rounds, contained in two 240-round cans.

Can containing 240 rounds of M2 Ball .30-06 ammunition.

That isn't really as much as it sounds like — consider
that you will be shooting at least 10 rounds at each target,
and do the math to estimate how long it will last.

You open the wooden crate to find two sealed metal cans.
Make sure to wear leather gloves while struggling
to open the cans!
It's fairly easy to open the cans using the attached key.
But it's quite difficult to avoid some jagged metal edges
while doing so.

This can is also marked with a lot number including the
manufacturer code HXP.

I would guess "H" for "Hellas", that being Greek for "Greece".
But that's just a guess.

Depending on what you bought, the ammunition might be in
cardboard cartons, as contained within the metal can above.

You will need some en bloc clips
to use an M1 Garand.
You can purchase them directly from a manufacturer,
as seen above.
Another way to get them is to buy some of
your ammunition in bandoliers.

The bandoliers are made from very non-sturdy green cotton.
Each bandolier has six pockets holding eight rounds each.

The spring steel en bloc clips hold eight rounds each.
A cardboard wrapper is intended to keep them from
tearing right through the flimsy cotton bandolier.

Bandolier holding six en bloc 8-round clips
of .30-06 ammunition.

Closer view of two 8-round en bloc clips
of .30-06 ammunition.

The CMP imposed a purchasing limit of 10 cans per year
in April 2009.
For the 407-CAN item of .30-06 ammunition
in 8-round enbloc clips in bandoliers, as seen here,
that's 192 rounds per can, and so 1,920 rounds per year.

Why?
The month before that, a friend of mine was at the Camp Perry
sales facility and saw two guys who had shown up in a
pickup truck two days in a row, each day buying as
much .30-06 ammunition as they could fit into the truck.
They were packing in more ammunition than they could safely
transport, as they stacked the truck bed with ammunition
crates until there was no more room and the springs
were completely compressed.

The greed and fear of a few ruined things for everyone.
Well, maybe not ruined exactly,
but certainly inconvenienced.

Now, before moaning that things are suddenly bad right now
because of today's politicians, read this excerpt from the
article "Reloading for the M1 Rifle" from
American Rifleman in March, 1986:

Things are a bit different these days, though.
These days owning and shooting an M1 virtually requires
that the owner / shooter be a handloader as well.
The seemingly limitless quantities of surplus .30-'06
ammunition of the 1950s and '60s were limited.
Whether drawn from DCM stock,
or purchased for only pennies per round,
that ammunition has largely disappeared —
most of it downrange — leaving only the brass cases.
And, those cases, their reuse for more shooting and
more fun, is what concerns us here.

.30 Caliber M2 Specifications from
"Hatcher's Notebook"

The following are from pages 35-37 of
"Hatcher's Notebook",
by Julian S Hatcher,
Major General, U.S. Army, retired,
The Telegraph Press,
1947.

Notice that the .30 Caliber M2 Ball round as standardized
by the U.S. military is not the same as the
.30-06 Springfield round.
They are very similar, but not exactly the same thing.

I think it would be accurate to say that .30-06 Springfield
is a more general category, and the .30 Caliber M2 Ball
is one more specific specification.

"Hatcher's Notebook"
includes ballistic tables showing slight differences
between generic Springfield .30-06 and the M2
and armor-piercing M2.
One of those tables is reproduced in the next section.

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